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Monday, July 14, 2014

I am sure some of you have been through this before. It happened to me on one of those very early mornings, when I "sleepwalked" to the kitchen to get a drink of water hoping to catch a couple more hours of sleep, while simultaneously noticing things worth photographing.

It was morning precisely on July 13, 2014, the night of a supermoon in place. Although, I have seen supermoons before, all very impressive, this time it was worth getting awaken.

An aircraft crossed the sky, leaving a contrail. The scene was just too perfect to miss. The moon in its best appeared rolling down the cloud. It took me a "minute" to get the camera settings right, remind you, I was half asleep. As I was shooting, the contrail slowly dissipated, leaving me happy and lucky to get up at that very moment.

Friday, July 4, 2014

Having owned Canon DSLR cameras and being very satisfied with their performance for years, my suggestions on what brand to go with is only partial. However, I see various Canon and Nikon models at work, when my students bring them in class and therefore can attest to both.

Technically and technologically, both Canon and Nikon went through their own ups and downs in designing their cameras and building their systems. We can argue all we want, which brand is better, but the truth of the matter is, there will be always something better in one and something different in the other. In the end both makers produce more or less equivalent for each level equipment (give or take).

Although, NO ONE can tell the difference between the two images, one taken with Canon and one with Nikon comparable cameras, the difference, in my opinion, is made by how easy, fast or intuitive these cameras can be operated.

I am not going to get into comparing which sensor is better or what focusing system is more accurate. There is so much written and compared already, that I will let your fingers do the web searching.

Here, I would like to voice only a few observations and affirm why I am still with Canon, besides that I am heavily invested in their lenses. This post is mostly for those on the market for a DSLR or those not invested in lenses and accessories that can only work with the exciting camera and considering to switch. Also, this post is not going to be helpful to point-and-shoot users of automatic modes, as in this case both DSLR makes perform just fine.

In general, I find Canon DSLR cameras are simpler and more intuitive to use. Buttons on the surface of Canon camera body let you access more functions without going into the menus. That means fewer clicks and scrolls through the menu. For example, all Canon entry level cameras have a dedicated ISO button, which in my opinion is very important and must be accessed quickly. With Nikon entry models, reaching ISO menu requires a few steps.

A number of Nikon DSLR models are not intuitive at all when it comes to changing the setting to a single focusing point, and requires to go to more than one menu and a couple of switches to set it up. With Canon, it is an easy one step. Single focusing point is needed, when a shallow depth of field is used or precise placement of a focusing point is needed.

Setting a timer function for 2 sec in some Nikon models is also more lengthy than it should be. Two seconds timer is used, when slow shutter speeds are in place to avoid camera shake, when remote control is not available.

All these little nuances make a big difference, especially when time and speed is everything. I would encourage searching the web for the functions that are important to you and find out which maker makes it better.